Japanese computer hardware company Buffalo has announced the world’s first 12x Blu-ray burner, which supports USB 3.0 on top of that. The BR-X1216U3 is backward compatible with USB 2.0 but will burn your Blu-rays with “just” 7x speed in that case.

You can only use it with a Windows machine XP/Vista/7. But actually there are no Blu-ray discs which could be used with a 12x burner and no USB 3.0-equipped computers out there at this point, but Japan is known to be a tad quicker than the rest of the tech world sometimes.

Buffalo says they will roll out the burner at the beginning of next month. Japanese street price: $460. The company hasn’t said anything yet about international sales.

via Buffalo announces world’s first 12x Blu-ray burner and it’s USB 3.0, too.

USB Flash Drives killed the Floppy Disk. Why? Well they are smaller, faster, have thousands of times more capacity, and are more durable and reliable due to their lack of moving parts. But the best part of the whole USB Flash Drive phenomenon is the fact that unlike Floppies, they [USB FD] come in so many different flavors. The following post will feature 12 outstanding designs & concepts with a brief Description, Price, & Capacity.

Pico

The Pico USB Flash Drive is barely bigger than the tip of your pinky, and less than 4mm thick, it’s positively small. The polished chrome finish is certainly shiny, but at 8, 16 or 32 gigabytes, it’s redonkulously teeny!
Price: $29.99 – $139.99
Capacity: 8, 16, 32 GB

USB Flash Drive Lighter

This flash drive has an ample 8GB capacity and the lighter is refillable. The USB connector slides out of the bottom of the metal case, using a small slider lever located on the side of the lighter. The lighter has a polished chrome finish and an adjustable flame.
Price: $49.99
Capacity: 8 GB

USB BBQ Flash Meat

These little geeky USB thumb drives look so real, don’t chew it, don’t ever put them in your mouth. Keep them away from your kids or they’ll swallow!
Price: $28.00
Capacity: 4 GB

USB Flash Drive + Bottle Opener = Party!

The TrekStor USB Stick CO is a high-speed data storage device which doubles as a bottle opener. Housed in solid, brushed aluminum, the USB stick CO features data transfer of 25 MB/s (read) and 12 MB/s (write). It comes bootable, pre-formatted and ready for immediate use without a driver and is compatible with Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X and Linux from Kernel 2.6.x. Sizes range from 1GB to 16GB of memory.
Price: $27.99 – $32.99 (Sponsored Link: Buy from Amazon)
Capacity: 2, 4 GB

Flash your Wallet

This durable double-sided-USB-connector has the same dimensions as a credit-card so you will always have it handy to use when needed!
Price: $125.00
Capacity: 16 GB

Retro as it Gets

This intricate retro sci-fi USB memory drive comes to us courtesy of an enterprising modder over in Russia. It was crafted from hand-polished brass and copper.
Price: N/A (Concept Design)
Capacity: Unknown

Lego my USB Flash Drive

With these USB Lego Bricks you can store millions of pages of text, thousands of images, hundreds of songs, or 10 hours of movies. After that you can continue playing! W00t!
Price: $29.99 – $39.99
Capacity: 2, 4 GB

Flash Folder

Folderix flash drives are designed to look like a folder icon, which proves that there are no boundaries to one’s postmodernist aspirations.
Price: $42.31
Capacity: 4 GB

domo!

The first collection of Domo MIMOBOT designer USB flash drives, is part of Domo’s first official overseas trip, teaming up with a series of animated Nicktoons shorts to bring the underground sensation into the worldwide limelight. All three Domo flash drive designs come preloaded with exclusive bonus Domo content, including 23 of the original stop-motion shorts that made him such a hit, computer goodies like icons and desktops, and the MIMOBOT mimoByte™ application.
Price: $65.99
Capacity: 4 GB

Locked Up

Unfortunately this USB Lock (no access for unauthorized persons) is just a Concept by “dialog05, Universal Connections”
Price: N/A (Concept Design)
Capacity: Unknown

Swiss This!

The Swiss Flash USB Knife is the perfect marriage of technology, practicality, materials, and quality design. It perfectly pulls together four important tools that no geek should ever be without (USB flash drive, LED light, Swiss Army knife, ballpoint pen).
Price: $39.99 – $69.99
Capacity: 1, 2, 4 GB

USB + Tie = Genius

Again, unfortunately this USB Tie (business class) is just another Concept by “dialog05, Universal Connections”
Price: N/A (Concept Design)
Capacity: Unknown

Creepy USB Human Thumb Drive

“New Cute Thumb Finger Flash Drive, 8GB! Like Real!” This is just creepy but I had to include it.
Price: $26.90
Capacity: 8 GB

One Word: Gangster

This flash drive is masterfully disguised as a frayed and broken USB cable. This will make it appear that you’re insane, and as all thieves know – never EVER mess with an insane person…
Price: $43.00 (Sponsored Link: Buy from Amazon)
Capacity: 2 GB

Read: 10+ Outstanding USB Flash Drive Concepts & Designs

K. T. Bradford over at Laptop Mag reports :

Back in August when we started testing the final version of Windows 7, we noticed that several netbooks didn’t last as long on a charge with the new OS installed as with Windows XP. Microsoft claimed that Win 7 notebooks would see longer battery life than Vista, and for the two full-size systems we upgraded that rang true. The Dell XPS Studio 16 only got an extra few minutes, but the Gateway NV lasted an extra hour. Netbooks have been a different story.

Read more via Stick with XP? Windows 7 Battery Life Worse on Netbooks.

[Thanks for the Tip Crunch Gear]

Chris Davies over at Slash Gear writes:

What does $80 buy you these days? If Menq have their way, and sort out their supply chain, it could get you an Android based netbook; the company’s EasyPC E790 has a 7-inch 800 x 480 display and a Samsung ARM926EJ-S3C2450 processor, and while right now it runs Windows CE, Menq will be pushing out an Android firmware update within a month. That’s good news for techvideoblog’s Charbax, as he’s been playing with a review unit.

Read More via Menq EasyPC E790 $80 Android netbook gets video demo – SlashGear.